The You Project

Chris Bailey is a Canadian writer and productivity consultant, and the author of The Productivity Project (2016), Hyperfocus (2018) and How to Calm Your Mind (2022). It took an on-stage panic attack for Chris to recognise how critical it is for us to invest in calm at the same time as we invest in becoming more productive. Productivity advice works - and we need it now more than ever -but it’s jus...

Helen Zahos is a Humanitarian, Emergency Nurse and Paramedic who has volunteered in disaster areas around the world and has cared for some of the world’s most vulnerable people. She has volunteered in Iraq in IDP Camps, in Nepal after the earthquake and Philippines after the Typhoon, as well as assisting during the Syrian refugee crisis on the border of Greece and more recently, she has travelled...

Old Mate David Gillespie (my fortnightly nemesis), has just published an article on substack.com titled ‘Dopamine Dilemma: Unravelling the ADHD Epidemic and Our Reliance on Medication'. This fascinating story (focusing largely on the most successful Olympian of all time – Michael Phelps) is the stepping off point for our conversation. Enjoy. Dopamine Dilemma: Unraveling the ADHD Epidemic and Our R...

In 1967 after 74 successful combat missions over Vietnam, Fighter Pilot Captain Charlie Plumb was shot down in his F-4 Phantom jet. On his 75th mission, only 5 days before he was to return home. Captured, brutally tortured and imprisoned in the Hanoi Hilton where Charlie remained a prisoner of war for the next 6 years. I know I say this too often but this conversation was truly fascinating and Cha...

In 1967 after 74 successful combat missions over Vietnam, Fighter Pilot Captain Charlie Plumb was shot down in his F-4 Phantom jet. On his 75th mission, only 5 days before he was to return home. Captured, brutally tortured and imprisoned in the Hanoi Hilton where Charlie remained a prisoner of war for the next 6 years. I know I say this too often but this conversation was truly fascinating and Cha...

Dr. Adam Mastroianni is a postdoctoral research scholar at Columbia Business School who studies how people perceive and misperceive their social worlds, from the person sitting across the table to the broader community buzzing around them. He writes a great blog (I checked it out) called Experimental History, is a stand-up comic, a Harvard Graduate and I think even he’d admit that he’s kind of a q...

Your body is always talking to you. Trying to make you aware of something and keep you informed. It could be whispering “please get me out of this chair for ten minutes” or it might be screaming “if you don’t stopping eating crap, you’ll f***ing kill me before my time!” In this episode of TYP, Dietician, Exercise Physiologist , Owner of ‘Be Fit Food’, Corporate Speaker, award winning Business Woma...

This is not another conversation about the mind. Or thinking. Or beliefs. Or subjective reality. No, it’s a conversation about the 1.3kg physical organ that resides in your skull. Did you know that you can improve the health and function of your brain by walking faster? And laughing more? And being properly hydrated? And standing up straight? Did you know there’s a powerful relationship between gu...

As someone who spent way too many years losing and gaining weight and fat and alternating between healthy and destructive behaviours, I have great interest in, and vast personal experience with, this topic. Also, as an Exercise Scientist and Trainer working with many others who were just like me, this is a question I’ve considered for years. This episode will be relevant (and maybe even helpful) f...

In part two of my conversation with Melissa, she asks me the following questions.. (7) Why do you think anxiety is such an epidemic at the moment? (8) Can we overcome our ‘programming’ (and do we need to)? (9) Do you feel more like a teacher or student - what are your percentages? (10) What are your thoughts about ‘retirement’? (11) Why are you so fascinated with human potential? (12) As a never-b...

This is a two-part conversation where Melissa asks me 12 questions, without forewarning of theme or topic. I hear them for the first time on the podcast. In this episode I answer (discuss) the following..  (1) Why do you say that your biggest problem is you? (2) Do you think you’re too hard on yourself? (3) When did you feel most inadequate? (4) Why do so many of us self-sabotage? (5) You grew up...

The desire for an easy life is an understandable desire but (1) what exactly is an easy life? (2) Does an easy life automatically equate to a happy, strong, resilient, fulfilled person in the middle of that life? (3) Does a life full of peaks and troughs, messy-ness and mayhem, tears and joy automatically equal an unhappy, unproductive, broken person? Is it possible that happiness and fulfilment i...

This time Patrick and I talk about the possibility of intelligent life somewhere 'out there’ (you know where), the smartest and dumbest dog breeds (if you’re a Basset Hound, don’t listen), the possibility of downloading our consciousness (not terrifying at all), how honest we should be with kids, achieving immortality with tech, computers becoming self-aware (good grief), who Patrick thinks I look...

Paul Taylor and I are like fine wines. And sometimes, cheap beers. And despite our over-fifty-ness, we both work hard to have a biological age that’s younger than our calendar (chronological) age. Apart from talking about ageing well and optimising what we have to work with (genetics, time, energy, resources), we also discuss the way our values drive our choices and behaviours, the correlation bet...

Paul Taylor and I are like fine wines. And sometimes, cheap beers. And despite our over-fifty-ness, we both work hard to have a biological age that’s younger than our calendar (chronological) age. Apart from talking about ageing well and optimising what we have to work with (genetics, time, energy, resources), we also discuss the way our values drive our choices and behaviours, the correlation bet...

What is failure? Personally, I don’t like the term but it’s a common label that we give certain events and outcomes based on our goals, intentions, plans, expectations and hopes. But what happens when we take the same less-than-desirable result and apply different thinking? Is there a lesson here? How have I grown through this? In terms of my strategy, what worked and what didn’t work? What would...

Collingwood Football Club and Melbourne Storm Psychologist Jacqui Louder is back at TYP chatting to us about the way she does her job. Specifically, her strategies, suggestions and conversations for dealing with performance anxiety, tall poppy syndrome, instant fame (and public attention) integrating young athletes into an existing group of older team mates, building culture within a group, managi...

Meanwhile, back at the best job in the world… today I chat with Robert Waldinger from Harvard Medical School. He is a Professor of Psychiatry, world-renowned Researcher, Author, Director of the Harvard Study of Adult Development (the longest running study in the world – 85 years) at Massachusetts General Hospital, cofounder of the Lifespan Research Foundation and Zen Master! This was a fascinating...

Josh Lenartowicz is a world-class Bodybuilder (2 x Mr. Olympia Competitor), Coach, Entrepreneur and Mate of mine who has been through some sh*t over the last few years. This was a fun catch up where we spoke about everything from bodybuilding, competition, diets that suck and standing on stage in budgie smugglers while being judged (literally) to dealing with pain, setbacks, self-doubt and uncerta...

We all like to think we have no bias, that we’re totally objective, open-minded and would never discriminate. It makes us feel better about us. In fact, 90% of us think we’re more open-minded than the average person. Well, if you’re like me and have existing beliefs, ideas, values and ingrained attitudes (not bad things, by the way), then like me, you’re not quite the cognitive or emotional blank...

This is a bloody fascinating and revealing conversation about sports and energy drinks with David Gillespie. In short.. brilliant marketing, sh*t products. We talk about the origin and evolution of these types of drinks, the potential risks, the wildly misleading (unethical?) marketing and claims used to manipulate (scam?) teenagers into consuming them, companies using ‘Influencers’ to make their...

Despite being a five-time Olympian and five-time world champion Aerial Skier, Jacqui Cooper failed to land 80% of her jumps. In a high-skill, high-risk, high-impact, high-courage sport, that equates to a lot of crashes, a lot of injuries, a lot of pain and a lot of operations (33 to be exact). This time around, Jacqui and I talk about all those crashes and learning through the physical and mental...

Over five-plus years and eleven hundred-plus episodes, one of my top 3 TYP moments was interviewing Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor; a personal hero of mine. Dr. Bolte delivered my all-time favourite TED talk ‘My Stroke of Insight’ over a decade ago and with complete fascination, I watched this amazing Researcher and Neuro-anatomist share in intricate detail about the day the left hemisphere of her brain we...

This is not a ‘how to’ conversation as much as it is the Exercise Scientist (and ex-fat kid) thinking out loud about the numerous factors and variables that influence the weight-fat loss process; everything from diet, mindset and exercise to marketing, online fraudsters and magic pills. Enjoy. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This episode with Patrick is half general catch-up and half interesting tech-talk. I don’t wanna say Patrick has issues but I will say that recently, he and his dog Fritz won first prize in a fancy-dress comp at the local festival, both dressed as Spider Man. I’ll let you come to your own conclusion. And yes, that’s Fritz the wonder-schnauzer in the pic. As always, it was a fun chat and among othe...